Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Rachel Reeves travelled to Wales to tell one family why her party will scrap the tax if elected next year

Personal pledge: Rachel Reeves (back) at the home of Warren Todd and his grandparents Paul and Sue Rutherford (Photo: Daily Mirror)

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Warren Todd looks up from the sofa at his family’s bungalow as Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions hands him a House of Commons teddy bear.

Born with rare chromosomal disorder Potocki Shaffer syndrome – which affects the development of his bones, brain and other organs – he is far more interested in the bear than the framed document Rachel Reeves has brought for his devoted grandparents .

But that document could hold the key to his caring family’s future – and Warren’s grandparents, Paul and Sue Rutherford, are looking at it intently.

“Dear Paul, Sue and Warren,” she has written, “the bedroom tax is cruel, unfair and the next Labour government will scrap it.”

Ahead of a new Commons vote on the issue next Wednesday, to be announced tomorrow, Rachel has made a nine-hour round trip to Clynderwen in West Wales to bring a personal commitment to 15-year-old Warren and his grandparents.

“We should be celebrating and applauding people like you,” the 35-year-old Leeds West MP tells Sue and Paul, who have looked after Warren since he was a baby.

“You’ve cared around the clock for Warren for nearly 15 years, and done everything you can to give him a decent childhood. Yet the Government is punishing you.”

Essential: Paul and Sue are pictured in their equipment-packed 'spare' room, with Warren looking on from the corridor. (Photo: Athena)

Warren’s disabilities include epilepsy and autism, skeletal problems and learning difficulties. His home was specially built for him as a three-bedroom bungalow to allow space for his equipment and for respite carers – yet his grandparents are still charged £60 a month “spare room subsidy”.

The DWP says the Rutherfords are supported by Discretionary Housing Payments which cover the amount.

But the family says they had to fight for them, they are time-limited and that, in any case, the principle remains.

Paul and Sue save the taxpayer thousands of pounds a week by caring for Warren at home. But the stress of the bedroom tax means its more likely they won’t be able to continue.

“We think if he saw how we were living he would end the tax straight away,” says 57-year-old Paul, himself disabled. “But of course he hasn’t been to see us.”

Instead, it is Rachel who the family takes to look at the famous “spare room” – full of Warren’s equipment and a sofa bed for respite carers to use.

Fight for justice: Paul joined a protest against the tax in London (Photo: Adam Gerrard/Daily Mirror)

“There is nothing remotely spare about it,” Rachel says.

As Warren has grown older the house has had to be fitted with a track system and hoist to help him into the bath and bed and on to the sofa.

There are many other adaptations the family use that would cost a fortune to replace in a new home.

Next Wednesday, Labour will force the fourth vote in a year on the bedroom tax – a deeply flawed policy that has persuaded few people to move house and driven families to foodbanks.

Ed Miliband says any costs of scrapping the policy, which has affected over 600,000 people, will be covered by reversing hedge fund tax cuts.

It is almost a year since the last Opposition Day vote Labour triggered, when their MPs spoke movingly of their constituents and some Tories, appallingly, heckled them.

Paul was among the families watching ashen-faced from behind the plate glass of the public gallery.

“I left before anyone spoke about my family,” Paul says. “It was a terrible thing to watch.”

Since then, Labour has backed a Lib Dem bill against the policy, and forced another Commons vote through a bill brought by Ian Lavery MP.

This is the document Rachel has signed for the Rutherfords.

Although Labour lost the vote, she explains it’s the basis for the legislation she will use to scrap the bedroom tax immediately if Labour get elected next May.

“This means we can start to get rid of it from day one of a Labour Government,” she says. “It will be the first thing I do.”

Action: Rachel Reeves MP (Photo: Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)

As we leave Pembrokeshire Rachel, a former economist who has just announced she is expecting her second child, is visibly moved and angry.

“The Rutherfords are the sort of family I went into politics to fight for,” she says. “None of us know whether we are going to become disabled or have a child that’s disabled.

"If that does happen to you or someone in your family we need to ensure there is a safety net that works. And that you should be treated with dignity and respect.”

For her and many other Labour MPs, this is about more than just a single policy. It is symbolic of the Government’s lack of understanding of how ordinary people’s lives work and of how poor and disabled people are paying for austerity.

“Social security was designed as a collective insurance system. When you need help, you should be able to draw on it,” she says

I see Rachel a few days later at a reception to mark the UN International Day of Disabled People where Ed Miliband makes an impassioned speech.

“I came into the Labour Party because I believe in equality,” he says, calling the bedroom tax a “hated, iniquitous tax that has got to be got rid of”.

Rachel says that her trip to Clynderwen has made her even more determined to see Cameron, Osborne and Clegg out of office.

“Meeting Paul, Sue and Warren has been a reminder of how high the stakes are at the election,” she says.